Communications spans two connected workspaces. Chat holds your organization's internal conversations, so your team can coordinate in channels or direct messages. Inbox holds external communication: public form submissions and outbound and inbound email. Together they keep the full history beside the work it belongs to.
Open the Workspaces
Select Inbox in the workspace navigation for external messages and submissions. Team Chat is available at Open Team Chat and through Command/Ctrl + K search. It is not in the default sidebar, but an administrator can add Chat to it in Settings > Organization > Sidebar Navigation. Chat shows its unread count inside the Chat page, while the Inbox badge shows new submissions and unread external activity.
On a smaller screen, each workspace uses one focused panel at a time. Select a conversation or item to open it, then use Back to return to the list.
What Is in Chat
The Chat sidebar gives you several connected areas:
- Activity collects recent messages, replies, mentions, reactions, member changes, email activity, and submission activity.
- Saved keeps messages you personally marked for later.
- Channels provide organized spaces for teams, topics, or workflows.
- Direct messages support one-to-one and small group conversations.
You can also search all accessible conversations, switch quickly between areas, and use the All, Unread, and Archived tabs. All and Unread contain active conversations; Archived contains read-only conversations that can be restored.
Chat Is in Beta
Chat carries a Beta badge while we keep improving it, so expect occasional changes. Chat is on for new workspaces. Workspace owners and administrators can turn it off for everyone from the badge's menu on the Chat page or from the Chat section of Organization settings, and back on from Organization settings. Turning Chat off disables workspace access but keeps every conversation; turning it back on restores access. See Manage Channels.
What Is in the Inbox
The Inbox organizes every inbound contact around the person: one card per person, holding all of their applications, emails, and events in a single conversation. Saved templates are available from the reply composer.
A Typical Workflow
For example, when an adoption application arrives:
- The person's card appears in the Inbox (or their existing card returns to the top, unread) and the submission shows as an event in their conversation.
- Routing can notify the right internal channel, while the applicant template's Auto-send switch controls the acknowledgement.
- Staff review the application in the right panel, add private notes, or reply — replies travel by email, so the applicant answers from their own mail app.
- Staff approve or reject the selected application without changing the person's other submissions. A review dialog lets staff edit and send the fitting email or apply the decision without emailing; enabled foster and volunteer auto-send settings remain automatic.
- Approved adopters can receive pet suggestions, and staff start the adoption from the same panel when the match is settled.
This keeps the external conversation and internal coordination together without exposing staff-only notes to the submitter.
Choose the Right Guide
- Start and Manage Conversations covers channels, direct messages, group chats, members, unread counts, favorites, and conversation states.
- Send Messages and Collaborate covers the composer, mentions, files, custom emoji, polls, checklists, threads, and message actions.
- Compose and Track Email covers replies, templates, personalization, attachments, the preview, delivery, and the organization footer.
- Work the Applicant Inbox covers the person-centric inbox, decisions, pet suggestions, adoptions, routing, notes, and the activity log.
- Find and Organize Work covers search, activity, saved messages, pins, shared links, and the quick switcher.
- Manage Channels covers member management, private-channel labeling, ownership, archiving, notification preferences, and turning Chat on or off for the workspace.
- Use Communications on Mobile and with the Keyboard covers the responsive workspaces, touch controls, keyboard shortcuts, long histories, and live status.
Access and Visibility
Conversation membership controls access: Chat only lists conversations in which the current user participates. A channel marked private displays a lock to make its intended privacy clear, but you should explicitly add every teammate who needs access.
Submission visibility follows operational roles, so teammates see only the submission types they are responsible for. Some administrative controls are shown only to conversation owners or people with the required account permissions.
Helpful Things to Know
- Line breaks and blank lines are preserved in messages and emails.
- Draft message text is kept as you move around Chat in the same browser session.
- Unread badges appear at the top of the chat sidebar and on each conversation row. The Inbox badge counts new submissions and unread external activity.
- Chat can show clickable in-app popups for new messages and replies outside the conversation you are currently reading. Browser notification delivery is configured per conversation.
- Long conversations load older messages automatically as you scroll upward.
- New messages, typing, presence, and other conversation changes update live while the realtime connection is available.
- Inbox contact and conversation history use progressive loading so large histories remain responsive.